Post navigation

How to Use Social Networking to Promote Your Business

Most people will readily agree that social media is a great tool to connect with others, and there have been amazing stories of family members who have found each other after many years of separation. Former schoolmates who lost touch after graduation have reconnected. All through the power of social media and social networking.

For small business owners and entrepreneurs, social media offers much more. It provides a way for you to promote your business or company.

All around the globe, in every imaginable industry, companies of various sizes are using social networks to connect directly with their customers, provide value, position their brand the way they want it to be perceived, and sell their products or services.

Large corporations, like Microsoft, acknowledge that social networking enables companies to:

Express Yourself as A Brand

Create and Maintain Good Conversations

Empower Participants

But how can you accomplish all the above just by posting comments on social networking sites?

How Social Media Networking Grows Your Business

There’s no doubt social networking gives you access to your audience, but what else can you accomplish with this tool?

Social media gives business owners the ability to:

Build an online presence

Increase website traffic

Boost SEO

Establish credibility

Connect with your audience

Glean valuable information to grow your business

Ways to Use Social Networking to Promote Your Business

There are a number of ways you can use social networking to promote your business. Let’s take a look at some of the most popular and powerful.

Share Lessons and Experiences – Social networking is about connecting. If you have something relevant to your industry to share, share it. Start conversations and partake in them.

Share Pictures, Audio and Video – Many social networking sites embrace visual forms of posting as well. YouTube of course is a video social networking site but even Facebook lets you link to and post audio and video messages. And Twitter developers have created picture and video sharing applications.

Share Information – Post interesting and relevant statistics, quotes, or headlines and start a conversation. When appropriate, link to your company website.

Drive Traffic to Your Blog or Website – Post a curiosity generating or attention grabbing headline and include a link to your website.

Promote – Launching a new product? Announce it via social networking sites. Offering a huge holiday discount? Let people know, but use this approach with the other more relationship-building aspects of social networking. Nobody wants to follow a company that simply pushes their products.

Advertise – Many social networking sites also sell advertising space. Facebook has run a successful advertising program for quite some time, and Twitter and Linked are in the game as well. They all offer very highly targeted opportunities to advertise your business, even if you’re on a strict budget.

Which of the ways listed above are you using to promote your business through social networking sites? Please share in the comments below.

Thank you for reading, and I invite you to schedule your complimentary ‘Ignite Your Business” Strategy Session to determine how you can use social networking effectively in your own business. Contact me through – http://YvonneAJones.com/ContactMe.

Comments

How to Use Social Networking to Promote Your Business — 4 Comments

I use social media to help establish credibility and authority in my niche, through the provision of Time Management Hints, Tips and TechniquesMike Gardner is The Time Doctor recently posted…Be On Time: 10 Tips for Being Punctual

It is essential for businesses to make use of Social Media if they want to survive in the modern world. I think the biggest mistakes business owners make are:
1. They ignore social media completely
2. They join and manage too many social media platforms at once, without mastering any one in particular. Resulting in overload and bad management.

Thank you, Duane, and I agree with you that those are two areas that some short-sightedness is demonstrated. It’s better to be good at mastering one or two social media channels that try to spread yourself too thin and excel at none.